We said goodbye to Kagga Kamma and started the long drive down off the plateau which is at 4000', past the KK Driving Range on its salt pan, and past the Sewing Machine, down to the picnic ground of yesterday. We birded for a while and ran into a professional birder who was checking out the area as he is to lead a group for Rockjumper, a South African bird tour company.
KK Driving Range
We turned south and spotted two hills in the distance, the eastern one of which is called Eierkop Hill - meaning "egg" hill, as ostrich egg shells, thought to have been left there by bushman in the past, were found on top. Bob's bird book says the hills are geologically made of tillite.
It turned out to be one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen: this wonderful hill rising out
out of the flat desert, surrounded by a necklace of white flowered, stocky, spiny shrubs. 
The plants were just spaced enough apart to make walking easy and we walked up to the base and around - until we hit a fence that bizarrely climbs the hill, over the top and down the other side, bisecting it exactly! Our hill was full of interesting plants and the view of the escarpment on the horizon, and the cloud shadows on the desert floor, made it a really magical place.
And we started seeing Bob's target birds. He called up a Rufous-eared Warbler, a new life bird, and spotted a Black-headed Canary as well other familiar species. We had a long way to go and one other birding spot so we reluctantly took off. We soon reached a rest stop at the edge of the Karoo, vegetatively interesting, but full of broken glass - glad I had sturdy shoes on! There we spotted two more life birds, the Fairy Flycatcher and Layard's Tit-babbler, at our last chance to see them!
We continued south, dropping steeply down 1000' into a lovely valley full of blooming fruit trees, all pink and white, with brilliant yellow patches of ice plant on the hillsides. Villages of white Cape Dutch houses and vineyards completed the scene.
We crossed the N2, the highway to Durban and entered the coastal plain, an area of rolling green pasture land full of baby lambs, greens of all shades and brilliant yellow fields of rapeseed. The land flattened out as we approached the coast and we finally entered the town of Arniston which we had visited way back in 2001. We were afraid that it might have grown with weekend houses as Langebaan has, but the village is a national monument which seems to have preserved it beautifully. We pulled into the Arniston Spa Hotel, where we had stayed before and got a lovely room overlooking the beach and the colorful fishing boats and the Indian Ocean.
The fishing boats supply the hotel with really fresh fish and we had a delicious dinner of grilled fish with wasabi sauce. And Bob had Five Life Bird day!
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